Lost to the Wind
by LovaticFever
Summary: Regina has gone missing and Emma will do everything in her power to find her. Even with half of Storybrooke throwing obstacles in her way. Swan Queen. My take on season 2. Nothing like the actual season.
1. Chapter 1

It had been two weeks.

Two weeks since she had gone to her mansion. Two weeks since she knocked and no answer came. Two weeks since she had lest herself in and she was nowhere to be found.

It had been two weeks since Emma had walked up those elegant stairs and found blood stains on the carpet of the hallway.

Two weeks since she felt her heart rate pickup as she sprinted down the hallway to the bedroom the blood trail had led to.

Two weeks since she realized Regina was gone.

And not of her own free will.

* * *

"What do we care if the bitch got kidnapped?"

"Yeah! I say somebody did us a favor."

Heads in the crowd nod in agreement with Jefferson and Dr. Whale as they argued against sending out a search party for Regina.

This was the third week and she was tired of all these stupid meetings that weren't getting them anywhere.

Emma was pissed. She was trying to resist the urge to bitch slap Dr. Whale and every single member his angry mob. How they had ended up on the good side of the Storybooks she had no idea. They were no better than the Evil Queen they despised. Maybe even worse.

Emma was tired of this. She wanted some progress to be made. They were in town hall and Snow was standing in front of the crowd of Storybrooke citizens trying to appeal to them.

"Kidnapping is wrong. No matter whom the victim is. Regina is still a part of Storybrooke and we need to help find her."

Emma saw a couple heads nod in agreement. Ruby, Granny, The Blue Fairy and Charming who were standing behind Snow.

Emma thought this meeting was a huge waste of time and would only consist of people hating on the Mayor which is why she had told Henry to stay put at the apartment. She knew he knew it too because he didn't argue with her. She also knew he had been crying at nights but when she asked him about it, he brushed it off or simply tried to change the subject. He missed his mother and the fact that she was hurt or worse made the situation even harder for him.

Emma would never admit it out loud but she missed Regina too. A lot. This is why she was so determined to find her. With or without the help of Storybrooke's citizens.

Snow obviously wasn't getting anywhere with these people. Sometimes a little roughness was needed. So Emma decided to it was time to end this stupid meeting.

"Look, I know Regina destroyed your happiness and took away your lives but she also gave you something. I seriously don't know how you guys survived in a world with no electricity or indoor plumbing for so long." Emma heard a small chuckled and looked behind her to see Ruby smiling at her with an amused look. She turned back to the crowd.

"It's hard. It's hard to forgive someone who ruined your life. Trust me, I know. Sometimes you just want to let them suffer and sit back and watch as they do. But we are the good guys and good guys help people regardless of whether they deserve it or not.

"Regina's not perfect. Far from it actually; but if you had taken the time to notice, you'd see that she was trying to change. She _wants_ to change. I can see it and so I forgave her. If I can forgive her then so can you. She is the mother of my son and I'm not gonna sit back and wait for her dead body to show up." Emma felt a cold shiver run up her spine at that thought. "It's either you're with us or you're not, it's your choice. But if you stand in our way, we'll have no second thoughts about whether to disarm you or not." Emma looked directly at Dr. Whale as she spoke her last words. She looked towards the citizens of Storybrooke and watched them contemplate her words. Grumpy was the firs to react and break the silence.

"Oh what the heck." He muttered before walking through the crowd and coming to a stop beside Snow and Charming. Snow looked at her friend gratefully and Charming squeezed his shoulder in welcome.

Before long the town hall was split in two. The other six dwarves had joined their brother on the 'good side' Jefferson, with his ever growing hate for Regina was standing firm by Dr. Whale's side so was Michael, the mechanic. The faces that were determined not move from Dr. Whale's side were no surprise to Emma. She couldn't really blame them though. The Evil Queen took their happy endings away from them.

Snow was glad to see her loyal friends by her side even if they didn't really want to be there. She had learnt a long time ago that loyalty could make people do things they would never do otherwise. Truthfully, she had no idea why she was there helping her arch nemesis. Regina had quite frankly ruined her life. But her daughter had convinced her it was the right thing to do. That the Evil Queen that ruined their lives was not the Regina they were trying to find.

Before long, Dr. Whale and his little evil posy had turned and exited the town hall. Not before sending a glare towards the rest of the citizens.

Snow turned to address the citizens who had decided to stick around but was interrupted before she got the chance to speak.

"Tell us again why we're helping Regina?" Grumpy asked. She was surprised to see him not drunk out of his mind Emma had no doubt he was only helping because of his loyalty to Snow White.

Snow was about to answer but Emma didn't give her the chance.

"Because she is the mother of your Prince." Emma hated having to use titles. She didn't like it when people thought they were better than her so she would never do it to anyone else. But if it was what was necessary to find Regina, she'd go around Storybrooke using it all day long.

"No. _You're_ the mother of our Prince." Grumpy replied. Even though he wasn't the only one who disagreed with the new development, he was the only one who had the guts to speak up about it.

Even though Grumpy kept asking their reason for trying to find Regina, he had a pretty good idea what it was.

The whole town had seemed to realize the looks the Evil Queen and The Savior gave each other. And they weren't always looks of disdain or anger. As a matter of fact, they were quite the opposite.

The only two people who didn't seem to realize it were the two women themselves.

"Regina is a better mother to Henry than I could ever dream to be. He would be devastated if she wasn't found. Even more so if we found her so late. So how about we stop wasting valuable time arguing about stupid shit and start searching?"

Emma made eye contact with everyone of the citizens standing in front of her, trying to convey the urgency of the situation.

"Okay. When was the last time any of you actually saw Regina?" Snow helped Emma out. She was glad when she saw the citizens gladly cooperating.

"The last time I saw her she was plotting with the Dark One." Grumpy scoffed. Emma would have hit him over the head with one of his empty bottles if she hadn't needed his help.

"That was before the well. She saved Snow and me." Emma defended Regina. She had been doing that a lot lately. She kept telling herself that this was all for Henry but deep down she knew that her son was only part of the reason. But she had made up her mind to completely ignore the other half of reasoning.

"Yeah. _After _she tried to kill you_." _Someone else had spoken up now. What was his name? Frankly Emma had no idea and right now she didn't care.

"She could've just let them die. But she decided to let her good side win and she saved them. It was Ruby who had spoken up this time.

If it was because they respected her or because she was a huge wolf, Emma didn't know but there were no more arguments from the remaining party.

"You were the last ones to see her." Granny spoke up directing her words towards Mother and Daughter.

"It appears we were." Snow replied.

Emma sighed. If the incident in the woods was the last time anyone had seen Regina, then this whole search and rescue would be even that much harder.

When they were in the woods, she had invited Regina to come with them to the diner but the woman had rejected and vanished in a cloud of purple smoke. At first she had wandered why Regina had declined. Isn't that what she had wanted? Time with her son? Then she had looked over to Snow and had seen the disdain on her face.

Regina didn't want to be where she was not wanted.

At that moment, Emma knew that Regina had really changed. The old Regina would bask in Snow Whit's discomfort especially if she was the cause. The old Regina would've accepted the invitation just to watch Snow squirm under her gaze never knowing if her life was in fact safe from danger.

"Did you guys check her house?"

"Yeah, maybe we'll find something."

Emma had checked the house, more times than she could remember, and had come out with nothing every time. The only thing that was there was blood. Regina's blood.

"I've already checked several times." Emma announced.

"Maybe if you have more than one pair of hands you'll find something." Charming spoke up for the first time.

"I guess." Emma had to admit, it was worth a shot.

"How about we start right now? We've already lost enough time."

Heads nodded in agreement and so the good citizens of Storybrooke all made their way out of Town Hall and down to 108 Mifflin Street.

Little did they know that one amongst them held the answer to all their questions.


	2. Chapter 2

Her head was pounding and her back ached from the awkward position she had been in for… she had no idea how long it had been and her brain was too fuzzy to try and figure it out.

She had been slipping in and out of consciousness since she had been out bested at her Mayoral Mansion. She still had no idea who it was that kidnapped her but when she got out of this wretched place, they would be sorry.

She had tried escaping the moment she had gathered intel on her surroundings but she had soon realized that her magic was useless. Whoever had taken her had a broad knowledge of magic.

Well she supposed she had it coming. Serves her right for giving people indoor plumbing and Iphones.

She found herself thinking about her son the few hours she was conscious for. Did her miss her or was he comfortable with her absence, sitting in that ratty apartment with Emma and the two idiots. They probably didn't even know she was missing. Even if they did. Wouldn't they be content with it? Someone did their dirty work for them.

Sometimes she refused to think of Henry. Because thoughts of him brought up thoughts of his birth mother. And they were not thoughts about how much she hated the woman. They were quite the opposite and Regina's damaged brain just couldn't handle that confusion yet. Or ever.

Her head snapped up when she heard footsteps making their way to her prison. It had been the first sign of life since she had been in the place.

She hadn't eaten anything since she had woken up in this place. Luckily, even though she couldn't use her magic, it was still present in her body and it kept her from dying of starvation plus the fact that she was unconscious more often than not helps too.

The footsteps came to a hault and the air went still once again, tension building. Regina was tired of this. She was not some helpless mortal. It was time to face whoever it was that was so bold to this to her.

"Show yourself." Regina spoke loud and confidently, ensuring that whoever it was had heard her clearly even though her head punded with every word. The only response she receive was a low chuckle. Too low for her to figure out the gender of her captor.

"Who are you? What do you want from me?" there were a lot of things people wanted from her. Like her head on a silver platter. She knew the question was redundant but she couldn't just sit there and await death. That was beneath her. There was a pregnant pause before something slid across the floor and towards her. Regina braced herself and closed her eyes, ready to feel pain but after moments with no such occurrence, she opened her eyes and looked toward the object.

It was a tray of food.

"Enjoy." It was the first hint she had gotten as to the identity of her kidnapper. It was a male voice. One that was totally unfamiliar to her.

Soon footsteps moved further and further away from her and any hope she had of finding out who was doing this to her, any hope to get out of this hell hole, disappeared with them.

* * *

Emma felt useless.

They had literally been tearing Regina's house apart for hours and they still had yet to find anything.

Henry had refused to stay home and had come to help. She never wanted him to come. The blood stains on the plush white carpet were still there. She tried to keep him from going up those stairs but he had eventually found his way up them. He had stared at the spots for a few moments and Emma could see that he was mustering everything in him to keep from crying. When she saw him, she gently removed him from the area.

No matter how devious and cruel Regina was sometimes, Emma knew Henry loved her. He never stopped calling her 'mom' and when Snow and Charming made their dislike for Regina known, she could see the way he flinched and tried to dispel his anger. And she knew he was sorry for hurting the older woman even if he didn't admit it out loud.

They were all gathered in the living. Well 13 of them. Emma had sent the rest of them to the sheriff's station just in case Dr. Whale decided to do something drastic. She was sitting in Regina's living room with the six dwarfs, her parents, Ru-Red, Granny, Archie and Henry. They were discussing their next move.

"There's one thing I don't understand though." It was Red who decided to speak up.

"What?" Emma asked suddenly curious.

"I don't smell any magic." Emma had almost forgotten that the young brunette was a wolf.

"You can smell magic? Wait- magic has a smell?" Emma asked surprised by this revelation. Could her world get any more unrealistic?

"Yes it has a smell and I can smell anything. And I don't smell any magic."

"Well Regina was trying to refrain from using magic. For Henry." Emma didn't have to look over to Henry to know he had a proud look on his face.

"Yeah but whoever took her must have used magic." Ruby replied.

"Or they could've just gone through the front door." Emma shrugged.

"No they couldn't have." It was one of the dwarfs who had spoken. Doc?

"Why not?" Everyone was curious now and all eyes were on Doc, intrigued.

"Regina obviously has an open wound. That much is obvious from the blood. If she had been carried through any of the exits in this house-"

"Her blood would've left a trail on the floor." Emma finished. Why hadn't she realized it before?

"So you're saying she's still in the house?" Granny asked.

"That can't be possible. We searched everywhere."

"Maybe there's a secret passageway. Like behind a bookshelf or something." Everyone in the room turned to look at Henry. He had a 'what did I do' look on his face.

"Of course she does! She's the Evil freaking Queen!" Ruby shouted, jumping from her seat like she had just discovered something that was previously 2 pair of eyes glared at her, reprimanding her for her use of Evil Queen, she sat back down. "Oh. Sorry."

"Henry you are a genius." Emma smiled at her son and it warmed her heart to see him grin back.

"Either that or you watch way too much tv." Granny said with an amused glint in her eyes.

"Okay so, where would Regina's secret passageway be?" Everyone was on their feet now, looking around the room.

"I think that's a question for her son and her baby daddy."

Emma wasn't the only one who stopped at that. _Baby Daddy? _

The room went silence as eyes averted or shot Emma a look.

She turned to Leroy. Grumpy. Whatever.

"Di you just call me Regina's baby daddy?"

"Aren't you?" Leroy shrugged and turned back to his search of the living room. _Regina should've been here to hear that._

"I think what Leroy means is that you two know this house better than any of us." Archie spoke up for the first time since arriving.

Emma ad Henry looked at each other both coming up short of anywhere Regina would hide her evil lair.

"Is there any room in here that Regina forbids you to go into?" the question was posed to Henry but Emma scoffed and answered anyway.

"Try every single one. Oh and let's not forget the porch, oh yeah, and the garden and anything else within a hundred mile radius."

Ruby chuckled and Emma could see the amused look on everyone else's faces. Well except Grumpy. He lived up to his name.

"We were actually asking Henry." Snow smiled at her daughter. She knew the woman was having a hard time dealing with the situation they were in and anytime Emma was having a hard time with something, she resorted to taking serious matters lightly to relieve the stress.

"No. I'm allowed to go anywhere I want." Henry stated.

Emma's shoulders immediately fell. She felt at a lost.

"But…"

Emma was immediately animated once again.

"But what?"

"There's something I've always found weird. Even for my mom." Before they could ask what he was talking about, Henry was running up the stairs and heading into Regina's bedroom.

When they had finally caught up with the boy, they saw him searching for something frantically in the nightstand beside the queen sized bed.

"What are you looking for?" Emma asked as she came to a stop beside Henry.

"This." Henry was holding a silver key in his hand. It looked ancient and way too big to fit in any of the doors in the Mayoral Mansion.

"And what are we gonna do with that?" Ruby asked coming to the forefront beside Emma's parents.

"Save my mom."


	3. Chapter 3

"What does it do?"

"It's a key. What do you think it does?" Ruby stared at her friend like she had just asked what letter comes after 'A'.

"Well I've learnt never to underestimate these things." Emma answered.

"Don't worry, it's just a key." Henry reassured his blonde mother.

"Well what does it open?" Snow asked.

"Her closet."

"She has a key to her closet?"

"I know. It's weird. After I found out she was the Evil Queen I thought she was hiding something bad in there. I found this key on her nightstand one day and figured it was for the closet but I didn't open it." Henry relayed to the four adults in the room.

"So you chickened out." Ruby summed up.

"I did not!" Henry glared at the wolf.

"Well, we can't afford to chicken out now kid." Emma declared.

Henry sighed and ignored the comment. He shoved the silver key into Emma's hands.

"You open it."

"Okay." Emma turned to the object of discussion and walked to it, four pair of eyes watching her every move.

She really hoped there was some sort of clue in Regina's closet. A secret passageway was a little bit too much to ask for.

Emma took her first few hesitant steps toward the closet before she stopped. The tension in the air was building and so was the anxiety.

There was a huff from and occupant of the room. Emma didn't have to look around to know who it was.

"Oh for god's sake, it's a freaking closet! What do you expect to find in there? Narnia?!"

Ruby could hardly control her urge to laugh and Snow and Charming glared playfully at their dwarf friend.

"Leroy, you and I both know that Narnia can't be accessed through a closet."

"Tell that to Disney."

"Wait."

All eyes turned to Emma.

"Narnia is real?!"

Ruby rolled her eyes at her friend and Henry looked like he was about to squeal at the news.

"Can we get back to the closet please?"

"The closet. Right." Emma was so questioning her parents about all this when this was all over and Regina was safe.

Emma took her few final steps to the closet and put the key into the lock. It fit perfectly she realized before twisting and hearing the familiar click of the door unlocking.

Before Emma decided to loose her nerve, Ruby came up beside her and flung the closet door open.

"Told you so." They heard Grumpy mutter behind them.

"Of course it has to look normal on the outside. It _is_ suppose to be a closet. We have to dig around." Ruby answered.

Henry spoke for the first time since handing Emma the key. "Well what are we waiting for?" he had already started digging through Regina's stuff.

"Wait what if we find _weird_ stuff." Ruby asked as she took a box from the top shelf of the closet.

"That's the point Rubes. We're looking for something out of the ordinary that will give us clues."

"I didn't mean that kind of weird stuff." Ruby replied.

"Then what did you mean?" Emma was totally confused.

"I think she means stuff like this." All heads whipped around to Grumpy who was holding a black police baton in his hand.

"What's weird about that?" Henry asked.

The adults in the room silently agreed that maybe having Henry raid his mother's closet was not a good idea.

"Ah, Henry, why don't you go wait downstairs with Granny and the other dwarves?"

"But I wanna help out here." Sometimes Emma wondered if he only questioned her commands or if he had done it with Regina as well.

"I hear there's a new episode of Justice League out today, you don't wanna miss it do you?"

Henry looked to be contemplating Ruby's words before relenting with a sigh and making his way to the door. When they heard his footsteps on the stairs, they decided that it was safe to resume the searching.

"What the hell is the Evil Queen doing with a baton?" Grumpy asked

"I think I have a good idea." Ruby smirked.

"It's just a baton! Maybe it's for protection. You know, like a baseball bat." Emma tried to reason.

"Yes, because the Evil Queen needs to protect herself in a town she built, where she's the mayor and the town Sheriff is her lap dog." Ruby said sarcastically.

"Well maybe she was gonna give it to the sheriff's office."

Grumpy scoffed at that. "Then why is it in her closet and not in the town hall?"

"I knew Mayor Mills had a kinky side. I mean, nobody can be that hot and not have a kinky side."

"Okay… can we stop talking about Regina's sexual preferences and try to find something to help her."

Emma had realized her parents had turned beet red when they had found the baton and had become impossibly redder when Ruby proceeded to talk about it so she decided to stop the conversation for their sake. What was worse than discussing your worst enemy's sexual preferences?

The next ten minutes were spent searching through Regina's closet.

Emma's hopes had been deteriorating as the minutes went by.

That is until a loud shriek came from a brunette wolf.

"Guys I think I found something!"

* * *

The food was disgusting.

The only reason she ate it was because she needed to survive.

Her captor, whoever he was, made no more attempts to converse with her. The silence had returned and she was left to her own thoughts.

She had thought about a lot of things

Was anyone looking for her?

Did they even realize she was missing?

_Henry_.

Was he asking for her? Or was he too busy playing house with the Charmings?

And although it pained her to admit it, she had thought about Emma. Too much for her own liking.

Did Emma realize she was missing? Or did the blonde give up on her like everyone else had?

If Regina allowed herself to think too much, she was sure she would be a crying mess and that was something she refused to do. Show weakness.

She had to find a way out of this hell hole. And when she did, those bastards (she was sure there were more people involved) were going to wish they hadn't been born.

But how was she going to do it? She had no magic and she could barely sit up on her own without the need to bring up her food.

One thing Regina was sure of though was that she would not stay and rot in this- wherever the hell she was.

Her prison was too dark so she couldn't plot escape routes. She could barely see two feet in front of her.

So she closed her eyes and made her other senses take over.

_Okay, first off, where the hell am I?_

_What do I smell? _She regretted thinking it the moment she sniffed.

"God, I need a shower."

She decided to use her hearing instead to decipher where she was.

There were no cars passing. But this was Storybrooke; there was hardly any need to drive when anything you needed was less than a five minute walk away.

And she was sure she was in Storybrooke. If she had passed the town line, she wouldn't even know her name.

She gave up on using her sense. It was definitely not working.

Regina took a deep breath and tried to move herself from a sitting to a kneeling position to prevent her legs from cramping. After two unsuccessful attempts, she finally succeeded, resting her back to the wall for support. It was only then that she realized she wasn't wearing any shoes.

She tried feeling around her prison for them but they were not within her reach.

And if she couldn't feel them, it meant they weren't with her. Her prison was that small.

Those bitches took her Jimmy Choo's.

They were going to pay.

Before she could seethe any further, footsteps brought her back to the present. They came to halt somewhere near her prison.

"Time to get up Your Majesty. Stretch your legs a little bit." It was the same voice. But she still had no idea who it belonged to.

Se heard the rustling of keys and the click of a lock opening, and then a door being shoved opened. She was prepared for a burst of light but it never came. She was still submerged in darkness and with the obvious head injury she had, her eyes were not going to adjust.

She heard the footsteps again. Louder this time as they moved towards her.

"What the hell do you want from me?" Regina tried her best to sound as regal and pissed off as possible but the pounding in her head and the sudden need to use the bathroom caused a failed attempt.

"That's for me to know and you not to find out." The man wasted no time in blindfolding her even though it was pitch black and she could see a thing.

Before she could answer with a snarky comment, her captor dragged her to her feet. He did it so quickly, that she had no choice but to bring up the food she had consumed mere minutes before.

Unfortunately for her, her captor had quickly stepped out of the way so she wouldn't get the satisfaction of throwing up in his face.

She had slid back down to the ground, suddenly exhausted. If she didn't get her magic back soon, she would surely die in this god forsaken place. She could tell her head injury was extremely severe and if these people only planned on feeding her once every two weeks, she would be dead before the end of the month.

Before she realized what was happening, she was being lifted from the ground and unto the shoulders of the man who had captured her. If she had any more food in her stomach, it would've been covering his back but fortunately for him, her stomach was empty.

She tried to get out of his grip but it was useless. The man was muscular. Very muscular. Even with her full strength, she would have never been able to take him.

Her protests landed on deaf ears as the man continued forward without so much as an acknowledgement.

The blood rushing to her head was making her nausea unbearable and she prayed that he would put her down soon.

There was the creak of a door and Regina felt the warmth of the sun and see the light pouring through her blindfold.

They were outside. In the open.

But why?

Before she had a chance to contemplate the plans of her captor, a collage of voices had shouted "freeze". The man that had been carrying her stopped abruptly in his tracks. But Regina didn't feel him tense.

He was definitely not afraid.

"Well look at that. People actually care about you."

Regina froze and fear made itself known.

She knew that voice. It was a voice that she had feared since she was little.

It was the voice of the woman she was sure she had killed before she built the curse.

She should've known never to underestimate her.

She was after all, Cora Mill, Queen of Hearts.

And she was very much alive. And in Storybrooke.


End file.
